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Afghanistan Cites Abuse in Moves Against Agencies
By ROD NORDLAND The New York Times August 23, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said Monday that they would announce new regulations on two American-backed anticorruption agencies, accusing them of abusing and humiliating suspects, including a high-ranking presidential adviser who was arrested last month.
Pakistanis Say Taliban Arrest Was Meant to Hurt Peace Bid
The New York Times By DEXTER FILKINS August 22, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.
Afghan President Firm on End of Private Security Contractors
August 22, 2010 VOA News Michael Bowman | Washington
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has reiterated his intention to disband private security contractors in his country by the beginning of next year. U.S. military officials say they will work with Mr. Karzai to achieve the goal.
Karzai Says No Formal Peace Process With Taliban
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 22, 2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said there are no formal peace talks between his government and the Taliban, but admitted to "individual contacts" with the hard-line Islamic group.
Petraeus says Taliban momentum reversed in Afghanistan
LONDON (AFP) – US General David Petraeus said Monday that the international troops he commands in Afghanistan have turned the tide on the Taliban's "momentum" there, although he warned tough battles still lay ahead.
Afghan capital removing its protective blast walls
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN (AP)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as conflict rages in Afghanistan, authorities are trying to make life in the capital a little more normal by removing or repositioning Kabul's ubiquitous concrete blast walls.
Rangin Dadfar Spanta: A U.S. ally that nurtures terrorists
The Washington Post By Rangin Dadfar Spanta Monday, August 23, 2010
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Afghanistan became a rare example of international consensus. The global community, amid competing regional and international interests, undertook a military intervention endorsed and legitimized by the U.N. Security Council. It was common knowledge that al-Qaeda
Air base expansion plans reflect long-term investment in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 23, 2010; A06
Three $100 million air base expansions in southern and northern Afghanistan illustrate Pentagon plans to continue building multimillion-dollar facilities in that country to support increased U.S. military operations well into the future.
US looks to Iraq strategy for Afghanistan
by Karim Talbi – Mon Aug 23, 6:20 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – With the withdrawal of the final American combat brigade from Iraq, US commanders in Afghanistan are hoping to emulate a strategy used there as they step up the war against insurgents.
Taking bin Laden's Side
The New York Times By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF August 22, 2010
Is there any doubt about Osama bin Laden's position on the not-at-ground-zero mosque?
Osama abhors the vision of interfaith harmony that the proposed Islamic center represents. He fears Muslim clerics who can cite the Koran to denounce terrorism.
Speculators Want Land from Afghan Refugees In Pakistan <br> August 22, 2010 VOA News Lisa Schlein | Geneva
The U.N. refugee agency says speculators around Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkwa in northern Pakistan, are pressuring Afghan refugees in flood-affected areas to repatriate and not return to their dwellings and refugee villages after floodwaters recede.
Facing Afghan mistrust, al-Qaeda fighters take limited role in insurgency
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 23, 2010
On Aug. 14, a U.S. airstrike in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz killed a Taliban commander known as Abu Baqir. In a country where insurgents are killed daily, this attack was notable for one unusual detail:
Training Afghan Police Remains Biggest Challenge
CBS News By Mandy Clark August 22, 2010
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - American soldiers in Afghanistan have the daunting job of training new Afghan police officers in one of the world's toughest neighborhoods - Kandahar, in the heart of Taliban country. CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark is there.
Berlin to train Afghan police even after security handover
Deutsche Welle 22.08.2010
Berlin is planning a long-term presence for German police trainers in Afghanistan. The German interior minister said the trainers, who instruct 5,000 police recruits a year, could stay in the country beyond 2014.
Afghanistan's new war crimes museum punts on still-powerful warlords
A war crimes museum in northeastern Afghanistan documents the past three decades of atrocities. But it displays little about perpetrators who remain influential today.
By Ben Arnoldy, Staff writer August 23, 2010 at 9:45 am EDT
Faizabad, Afghanistan — He was a very tall man who wore outsized shoes and blue clothes. Sayed Husain taught history and prayed at the mosque, and for that he was thrown into jail in 1979. Educated people like him were the first to be rounded up when the communists came to power in 1978, kicking off Afghanistan's three decades of turmoil.
Petraeus: No Sudden Troops Exodus From Afghanistan
Petraeus says he'll tell Obama there should be no sudden exodus of troops from Afghanistan
By DAVID STRINGER The Associated Press
LONDON - The top American commander in Afghanistan warned Monday there should be no sudden exodus of U.S. troops when the process of withdrawing forces begins next year.
NATO: 4 foreign troops in Afghanistan
By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 23, 7:10 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – Roadside bombs killed four members of the international security force in Afghanistan on Monday, including one American, NATO reported.
Troops kill five Taliban in S Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Gun battle and militancy elsewhere in Taliban hotbed southern region of Afghanistan left five Taliban insurgents dead including their commander, while unknown armed men shot dead a senior police on Sunday, officials said.
4 Taliban militants, 5 civilians killed in N Afghanistan
BAGHLAN, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Clash and explosion left nine persons dead including four Taliban insurgents elsewhere in north Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.
12 Taliban militants killed in E Afghanistan
NANGARHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- NATO-led troops killed a dozen Taliban insurgents in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, according to a Nato statement on Sunday.
Unknown armed men kidnap district chief, son in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified armed men abducted a district chief and his son in Kunar province east of Afghanistan, a private television channel reported Sunday.
Insurgent fire kills 2, including child, in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Two Afghan female civilians, including a child, were killed when insurgents attacked an Afghan and coalition patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of southern Helmand province Saturday.
Three key Taliban commanders killed in S Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Three key Taliban commanders were killed as troops stormed their hideouts in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, a press release issued by provincial administration said on Sunday.
Premature explosion kills 4 militants in N. Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Four Taliban militants were killed as their mine went off prematurely in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province Saturday, according to a statement issued by Afghan Interior Ministry on Sunday.
Candidate's Brother Killed in Taliban Attack
TOLOnews Sunday, 22 August 2010
The brother of one of the parliamentary elections candidates was killed and three of his body guards were wounded Saturday afternoon in the western Herat province
Pentagon Condemns Taliban for Claiming Captured U.S. Soldier Joined Their Cause
Published August 23, 2010 | FoxNews.com
The Pentagon condemned and refuted the Taliban's claim Monday that the only known American soldier in their captivity had been converted to Islam and is training fighters in bombmaking and ambush tactics.
Turkmenistan Tips Its Hand On Future Energy Exports
August 22, 2010 By Bruce Pannier Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Turkmenistan, so key to the energy plans of so many, had long shown its readiness to break Russia's stranglehold on its gas and oil exports. But Ashgabat has offered few hints as to who it prefers as an alternative.
WikiLeaks founder accuses Pentagon over rape claims
AFP August 23, 2010 8:21 AM
STOCKHOLM - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview published Sunday he believed the Pentagon could be behind a rape allegation against him that was swiftly dropped by Swedish authorities.
How WikiLeaks Keeps Its Funding Secret
Wall Street Journal By JEANNE WHALEN and DAVID CRAWFORD AUGUST 23, 2010
The controversial website WikiLeaks, which argues the cause of openness in leaking classified or confidential documents, has set up an elaborate global financial network to protect a big secret of its own—its funding.
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Afghanistan Cites Abuse in Moves Against Agencies
By ROD NORDLAND The New York Times August 23, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said Monday that they would announce new regulations on two American-backed anticorruption agencies, accusing them of abusing and humiliating suspects, including a high-ranking presidential adviser who was arrested last month.
Waheed Omer, the presidential spokesman, on Monday elaborated on criticisms made Sunday by President Hamid Karzai during an interview in the United States.
“Some of the arrests made have been against human rights principles,” Mr. Omer said, referring particularly to the arrest of Mohammed Zia Saleh, an official of the National Security Council. “He was handcuffed, shackled and wrapped up in chains and even kept that way in front of family members.”
Mr. Omer also suggested that much of Afghanistan’s corruption problem was the fault of foreign contractors, and called on the international community to do more to help Afghanistan combat the problem. Last week, Mr. Karzai ordered a four-month phaseout of all private security companies in Afghanistan, domestic and foreign.
A spokesman for the United States Embassy could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Mr. Omer said the president would issue a decree later on Monday regulating the two anticorruption agencies involved in Mr. Saleh’s arrest, the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigations Unit. Both units are self-contained, independent entities with broad powers to arrest, detain and try suspects, and both have a large component of American advisers who work closely with them.
Mr. Karzai confirmed Sunday in the interview with ABC News that he had personally ordered Mr. Saleh released from detention.
“I intervened, very, very strongly,” he said.
Mr. Omer said that the new rules would not prevent the agencies from carrying on their work.
“There will be no political interference, but we don’t want anyone taken out of their homes with chains and shackles,” he said. “Neither Afghanistan’s government nor the international community will interfere in their work, which will be based on Afghanistan’s constitution and judicial sovereignty.”
Details of the decree were to be made public when it was issued later on Monday.
A presidential commission, convened by Mr. Karzai shortly after Mr. Saleh’s arrest, criticized the two agencies because they did not use the usual judicial authorities in Afghanistan and were dominated by foreigners. When the agencies were established, with strong input from the F.B.I. and other United States law enforcement officials acting as advisers, the intention was to insulate them from a judicial system which is itself widely viewed as corrupt.
An American official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss this issue with the press, expressed hope that Mr. Karzai would not undercut the two agencies.
“In the end, we’re hoping he’ll do the right thing.”
The issue of the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigations Unit was the subject of discussions between Mr. Karzai and Senator John Kerry during two visits here last week by Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Kerry issued a statement saying “the work of these entities must be allowed to continue free from outside interference or political influence, including with respect to ongoing cases.”
The Obama administration has made fighting corruption in Afghanistan a mainstay of its policy here, and the two agencies have been particularly active in prosecuting corrupt officials, with at least 52 people now in their custody on graft charges.
“The M.C.T.F. and the S.I.U. are two of the best, most effective organizations” in the Afghan government, said a Western official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his country’s policy. “What they should be doing is heaping praise on them and rewarding them for doing their job.”
The perception that Mr. Karzai intends to scuttle the two agencies has caused the most serious crisis in United States-Afghan relations since last year’s presidential elections, which international observers denounced as fraudulent.
Mr. Omer, speaking at a news conference Monday, insisted that the Afghan government remained committed to combating corruption. Claiming that some local businessmen had made hundreds of millions of dollars from international contracts, he said there was a need to investigate contractors as well as government officials.
“The friends of the international community and the friends of the Afghan government should be equally targeted when it comes to corruption,” Mr. Omer said.
He repeatedly stressed that the case against Mr. Saleh consisted only of an allegation that he had solicited a bribe in the form of a car worth $10,000. In addition, he said, it was improper for what he said were 30 armed agents to come to his house in the middle of the night and take him away in chains, when they could simply have requested that his agency turn him over.
However, it was alleged that Mr. Saleh took a bribe to help impede an investigation into a politically well-connected money transfer company, the New Ansari Exchange, which officials have said is suspected of wrongdoing involving the movement of billions of dollars out of Afghanistan in recent years.
In an audit for Congress released Aug. 5, Larry Fields, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, noted that some $50 billion in United States reconstruction money had already been spent in Afghanistan, with another $20 billion budgeted for coming years.
“To date U.S. reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan has been provided without the benefit of an approved comprehensive U.S. anti-corruption strategy,” Mr. Fields said. “However, if there were systems in place to address corruption issues, there would be more confidence in the Afghan government.”
Mr. Saleh remains free pending trial, and Afghan officials said they do not intend to interfere in his case, although he would not normally have been released from custody so quickly.
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Pakistanis Say Taliban Arrest Was Meant to Hurt Peace Bid
The New York Times By DEXTER FILKINS August 22, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.
But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had.
Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.
In the weeks after Mr. Baradar’s capture, Pakistani security officials detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying the protection of the Pakistani government for years. The talks came to an end.
The events surrounding Mr. Baradar’s arrest have been the subject of debate inside military and intelligence circles for months. Some details are still murky — and others vigorously denied by some American intelligence officials in Washington. But the account offered in Islamabad highlights Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan: retaining decisive influence over the Taliban, thwarting archenemy India, and putting Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan’s postwar political order.
“We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” said a Pakistani security official, who, like numerous people interviewed about the operation, spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians.”
Some American officials still insist that Pakistan-American cooperation is improving, and deny a central Pakistani role in Mr. Baradar’s arrest. They say the Pakistanis may now be trying to rewrite history to make themselves appear more influential.
“These are self-serving fairy tales,” an American official said. “The people involved in the operation on the ground didn’t know exactly who would be there when they themselves arrived. But it certainly became clear, to Pakistanis and Americans alike, who we’d gotten.”
Other American officials suspect the C.I.A. may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks.
At a minimum, the arrest of Mr. Baradar offers a glimpse of the multilayered challenges the United States faces as it tries to prevail in Afghanistan. It is battling a resilient insurgency, supporting a weak central government and trying to manage Pakistan’s leaders, who simultaneously support the Taliban and accept billions in American aid.
A senior NATO officer in Kabul said that in arresting Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis may have been trying to buy time to see if President Obama’s strategy begins to prevail. If it does, the Pakistanis may eventually decide to let the Taliban make a deal. But if the Americans fail — and if they begin to pull out — then the Pakistanis may decide to retain the Taliban as their allies.
“We have been played before,” a senior NATO official said. “That the Pakistanis picked up Baradar to control the tempo of the negotiations is absolutely plausible.”
As for Mr. Baradar, he is now living comfortably in a safe house of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Pakistani official said. “He’s relaxing,” the official said.
Many of the other Taliban leaders, after receiving lectures against freelancing peace deals, have been released to fight again.
Exactly why the Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, became so alarmed at the Afghan peace talks is unclear. In retrospect, paranoia seems to have figured as much as national self-interest.
A senior Afghan official said that beginning late last year, his government had reached out to a number of Taliban leaders to explore the prospect of a deal. Among them were Mr. Baradar and another Taliban leader named Tayyib Agha. The Afghan official declined to say who met the Taliban leaders, but reports of such meetings have since surfaced. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, reportedly met Mr. Baradar in January, according to a former Afghan official and a former NATO official. Mr. Karzai’s brother denies it.
In another overture, Engineer Ibrahim, then the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service, met with a group of Taliban leaders in Dubai, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Ibrahim, now with the National Security Council, could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
A Pakistani spiritual leader close to the Taliban leadership said that, earlier this year, he had received a message through an intermediary that Mr. Karzai wanted to talk peace. “We rejected it,” he said.
The discussions with Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban were in their early phases, but they seemed promising, the Afghan official said. Their aim was to establish conditions under which formal talks could begin.
“It was the beginning of a negotiation, so both sides staked out extreme positions,” the Afghan official said. “But we sensed a readiness for peace.”
When Pakistani intelligence officials learned of the overtures, they became unnerved by what they saw as an attempt by the Afghans to strike a peace deal without them. In particular, the ISI suspected the Americans were orchestrating the talks.
In January, days before Mr. Baradar’s capture, a senior ISI official told The New York Times that his agency was hunting the Taliban leader because he was in contact with the Americans. The ISI official accused the Americans of disregarding Pakistan’s legitimate security interests.
“We are after Mullah Baradar,” the senior ISI official said. “We strongly believe the Americans are in touch with him.”
A second ISI official confirmed that the Pakistanis had decided to go after Mr. Baradar to shut down what they feared were blossoming peace talks.
“This is a national secret,” he said. “The Americans and the British were going behind our backs, and we couldn’t allow that.” American and British officials denied they were directly involved in talks with the Taliban.
Once the decision was made to detain Mr. Baradar, the Taliban leader was tracked to Karachi, a sprawling, violent city of nearly 20 million people. There, the Pakistani official said, ISI agents waited for him to activate his cellphone. After several days, the alarm went off, and the agency narrowed Mr. Baradar’s whereabouts to a densely populated area of about two square miles.
That was as far as the intelligence agency’s technology would go, the Pakistani official said. To pinpoint Mr. Baradar’s location, ISI agents turned to the C.I.A.
Since 2001, the C.I.A. and the ISI have maintained an uneasy relationship. They have cooperated on hundreds of operations and detained dozens of militants, but they have clashed over the ISI’s support for the Taliban.
Within minutes of Mr. Baradar’s cellphone activation, the C.I.A. sent two unarmed American technicians to join the Pakistani intelligence agency’s team, the Pakistani official said.
Activating a portable tracking device, the C.I.A. team quickly led the ISI to Mr. Baradar’s home. Only four hours after his cellphone went on, Mr. Baradar was in Pakistani custody, the Pakistani official said. According to the Pakistani official, the ISI did not inform the Americans of the identity of the target.
American officials disputed this account, saying the intelligence indicated that the target was related to Mr. Baradar. But they conceded that they did not know the identity of Mr. Baradar until after the arrest.
The Pakistanis refused to allow the C.I.A. to interrogate Mr. Baradar or even to be present when they spoke. Another Pakistani official said Mr. Baradar was taken to a safe house in Islamabad, where he was debriefed. It was only several days later that the C.I.A. learned of his identity and were allowed to question him.
The Pakistani official even joked about the C.I.A.’s naïveté. “They are so innocent,” he said.
Some American officials insist that while the C.I.A. may not have known whom the Pakistanis were capturing, the Pakistanis did not know either. They speculated that once the Pakistanis had Mr. Baradar, they may have decided to hold him to scuttle the peace talks. It was then, some American officials say, that the Pakistanis may have decided to detain the other Taliban leaders.
“We are not convinced that that was why Baradar was picked up,” an American official in the region said, referring to the Afghan talks. “But maybe that was why he was held.”
Yet other American officials said the Pakistani version seemed more credible than the C.I.A.’s. “Baradar is too high-profile for them not to have known who it was,” the senior NATO official said.
Within days of Mr. Baradar’s arrest, Pakistani agents picked up as many as 22 other Taliban leaders across Pakistan, according to an official with the United Nations in Kabul. The detentions included some of the most senior Taliban commanders, including Mullah Qayoom Zakir, Abdul Kabeer and Abdul Rauf Khadem.
“We know where the shadow government is,” the Pakistani security official said.
The official said the detained Taliban leaders were warned against carrying out future negotiations without their permission. A former Western diplomat, with long experience in the region, confirmed that the ISI sent a warning to its Taliban protégés.
“The message from the ISI was: no flirting,” he said.
Afghans close to the Taliban said the arrests of Mr. Baradar and the others illustrated the strained relationship between the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistani intelligence. The ISI may protect the Taliban’s leaders, they said, but they also limit their freedom. “When we try to act on our own, they stop us,” the Pakistani spiritual leader said.
Since then, many of the Taliban leaders who were detained have been set free, officials said. Principal among them is Mr. Zakir, a Taliban commander who was released from the American prison at Guantánamo Bay in 2006.
Mr. Zakir, who took over for Mr. Baradar, is regarded as more brutal than his predecessor, unconcerned about civilian casualties — and less inclined to do a deal with the Karzai government.
Pir Zubair Shah and Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
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Afghan President Firm on End of Private Security Contractors
August 22, 2010 VOA News Michael Bowman | Washington
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has reiterated his intention to disband private security contractors in his country by the beginning of next year. U.S. military officials say they will work with Mr. Karzai to achieve the goal.
In an interview on U.S. television, ABC's This Week program, President Karzai accused private contractors of perpetrating a host of ills in Afghanistan.
"We have decided in the Afghan government to bring an end who are running a parallel security structure to the Afghan government, who are not only causing corruption in this country, but who are looting and stealing from the Afghan people, who are causing a lot of harassment to our civilians, and who we do not know if they are security companies in the daytime and then turning into terrorist groups at nighttime," he said. "They are wasting billions of dollars of resources."
Mr. Karzai did not distinguish between Afghan and international security contractors. He said that private contractors will be allowed to continue to protect diplomats and international aid operations within their compounds, but will not be allowed to operate on the streets of Afghanistan.
The president described their presence as an impediment to the formation of capable Afghan security forces. He said that the sooner they are disbanded, the better.
"The more we wait, the more we lose," said Mr. Karzai.
U.S. military officials have expressed surprise at the announcement. Military analysts say Afghanistan's security forces are not ready to assume the duties performed by private security firms. But the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, appears to have accepted the new reality. He spoke in an interview with CBS News.
"It is incumbent on us to help with this [Karzai directive]. To ensure that our money is not undermining our very efforts," he said. "We are very supportive of that, and we are going to do everything we can to help the [Afghan] Ministry of Interior to deal with that and figure out the way ahead. And in some cases, we are going to have to take on some of those tasks [currently performed by contractors]. And the Afghan forces will have to do more, as well."
Tens of thousands of private security personnel are employed by international forces, non-governmental organizations, and foreign media outlets in Afghanistan.
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Karzai Says No Formal Peace Process With Taliban
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 22, 2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said there are no formal peace talks between his government and the Taliban, but admitted to "individual contacts" with the hard-line Islamic group.
In an interview aired today on ABC News, Karzai said there was a "clear" course toward possible future peace talks with militants who are not part of Al-Qaeda and any other terrorist network.
The president also said Afghan women will have "solid and meaningful" representation in any formal talks so their political, social, and economic gains will not only be protected but expanded.
Karzai, who last week decreed that foreign security contractors must disband in the next four months, said they such companies were obstructing the development of Afghan police and security forces.
He also said these contractors were in contact with "Mafia-like groups and perhaps also funding militants and insurgents and terrorists through those funds."
compiled from agency reports
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Petraeus says Taliban momentum reversed in Afghanistan
LONDON (AFP) – US General David Petraeus said Monday that the international troops he commands in Afghanistan have turned the tide on the Taliban's "momentum" there, although he warned tough battles still lay ahead.
In an interview with the BBC, he also played down the prospect of a rapid withdrawal of US troops next year, repeating his insistence that US President Barack Obama's target of July 2011 was only a "date when a process begins".
As the toll of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan rose once again Monday with the death of two more NATO troops, Petraeus said the road ahead could be bloody but insisted the nine-year campaign was making progress.
"The momentum that the Taliban have established over the course of recent years has been reversed in many of the areas of the country and will be reversed in the other areas as well," he told the BBC.
"Now that's not enough -- you not only have to reverse the momentum, of course you have to take away the sanctuaries and safe havens that the Taliban have been able to establish over the course of those years that they enjoyed the momentum and that's going to entail tough fighting."
The general cited Helmand province in southern Afghanistan as one area where NATO troops have "certainly" reversed the rise of the Taliban, who were ousted from power in Kabul by the US-led invasion in 2001.
The reversal was "beginning" in Kandahar, while there was also success around Kabul where, he noted, Afghan forces were now taking control of security operations in all but one district of the capital.
However, Petraeus acknowledged the toll this has taken on international forces, who have lost 453 soldiers already this year, according to an AFP tally based on the independent icasualities.org website.
The death toll for the whole of 2009 was 520.
"When you take away areas that mean a great deal to the enemy, the enemy fights back. It gets harder before it gets easier," Petraeus said.
The number of foreign troops in Afghanistan is set to peak at 150,000 in the coming weeks following orders from Washington for a "surge" aimed at speeding up the end of the war, ahead of US plans to begin withdrawing next July.
Petraeus previously saved a failing US mission in Iraq with a similar surge there in 2007.
The general repeated his argument Monday that any withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground in Afghanistan -- a position that has put him at odds with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who insists the date is set in stone.
"It's very important to remember what July 2011 actually is -- that's a date when a process begins, nothing more, nothing less. It is not the date when American forces begin an exodus and look for the exit and the light to turn off on the way out of the room," Petraeus told the BBC.
"It's a date when a process of transition of some tasks to some Afghan forces in those areas where the conditions allow it and at a pace allowed by the conditions. That's what begins then."
Petraeus said he would tell Obama if the conditions were not right in July, adding: "It could very well be that he may not accept all of that advice."
The general took over after his predecessor, Stanley McChrystal, was sacked following indiscreet remarks to a magazine.
Asked about his own prospects, Petraeus said: "You go into a job like this, you think it's your last job... you're determined to do the very best you can."
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Afghan capital removing its protective blast walls
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN (AP)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as conflict rages in Afghanistan, authorities are trying to make life in the capital a little more normal by removing or repositioning Kabul's ubiquitous concrete blast walls.
Work crews this week began tackling the 10-foot (3-meter)-tall concrete barriers that ring government buildings, embassies, banks and other potential targets in the Afghan capital and sometimes block vehicle and even pedestrian traffic.
The goal is to improve the flow of traffic through the congested city, whose population has tripled to 4.5 million since the Taliban were ousted in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Removal of the walls makes Kabul look less like the capital of a country at war.
In Iraq, a similar move by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki backfired. A drop in violence last year prompted al-Maliki to order most blast walls removed even as critics accused him of lifting security measures prematurely for political purposes.
Walls in Baghdad went back up after a huge bombing in August 2009 that killed about 100 people.
Nevertheless, with attacks in Kabul only a fraction of those in Baghdad, President Hamid Karzai this month ordered the removal or repositioning of the walls in response to public complaints that the security measures are making their lives harder.
Kabul resident Ahmad Mujahed said the walls actually make him feel less safe. He's happy with Karzai's order.
"We want (the government) to make the people feel safe, and the barriers should be moved to allow the people to walk around the city freely," Mujahed said.
Mula Hashim, a trader pushing his handcart through chaotic traffic, agreed.
"It is a very good idea. The roads get bigger, and the people can walk without restraints," Hashim said.
Work crews outside a police recruiting center in eastern Kabul on Sunday lashed steel cables to iron hoops embedded in the walls' upper edge and used cranes to move them away slab by giant slab. Some were loaded aboard trucks for storage, while others were simply shifted back from the street.
Even when the relocating is done, plenty of blast walls will likely remain, along with sandbagged checkpoints, bales of razor wire and thousands of assault rifle-toting security guards.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said walls outside the police and border police headquarters had been the first to be moved out of the way of traffic. The national government and Kabul municipality were coordinating on what other walls to move, with the ultimate goal being freeing Kabul of the eyesores entirely.
"We want to finish soon, but it will take time," Bashary said. "We first want to give people more space to move, then get rid of the altogether."
Removal of the walls carries major political significance for Karzai, who needs to show Afghanistan's beleaguered people that he can bring about real improvements in security and quality of life. The campaign also comes amid increasing moves by the president to assert his authority over Afghanistan's security situation, even with 120,000 foreign troops still in the country.
In a similar vein, the president last week ordered private security companies to cease operating in Afghanistan within four months, prompting a backlash from the U.S. and its allies who rely heavily on contractors to guard supply convoys, installations and development projects.
Complaints have mounted that the firms are poorly regulated, reckless and effectively operate outside local law.
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Rangin Dadfar Spanta: A U.S. ally that nurtures terrorists
The Washington Post By Rangin Dadfar Spanta Monday, August 23, 2010
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Afghanistan became a rare example of international consensus. The global community, amid competing regional and international interests, undertook a military intervention endorsed and legitimized by the U.N. Security Council. It was common knowledge that al-Qaeda had created a haven in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan's intelligence agency. Dismantling this regional terrorist infrastructure was considered vital to the international counterterrorism strategy.
Then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage delivered a message to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in November 2001: It could join the international coalition or be bombed "back to the stone age." Across the border, the Afghan people persecuted by the brutal rule of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as by the lordship of Pakistani generals, welcomed the international community with open arms. We have made significant progress in recent years. But our achievements in education, health, development and civil rights have been overshadowed and eroded by terrorist attacks.
There is ongoing domestic and international confusion in identifying Afghanistan's friends and foes. The Afghan people are wholeheartedly grateful to the international community for its sacrifices in blood and treasure. Unfortunately, the military-intelligence establishment of one of our neighbors still regards Afghanistan as its sphere of influence. While faced with a growing domestic terrorist threat, Pakistan continues to provide sanctuary and support to the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the Hekmatyar group and al-Qaeda. And while the documents recently disclosed by WikiLeaks contained information that was neither new nor surprising, they did make public further evidence of the close relations among the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence.
The international community is present in Afghanistan to dismantle these international terrorist networks. Yet the focus on this fundamental task has progressively eroded and has been compounded by another strategic failure: the mistaken embrace of "strategic partners" who have, in fact, been nurturing terrorism.
Much has been said about the political will of the Afghan government, governance in our country and corruption. These are mainly domestic variables. It is true that an exhausted and desperate political elite in Afghanistan, faced with predatory and opportunistic individuals in and outside the power structures, allowed the mafia to penetrate into politics. State institutions were undermined and the rule of law weakened. Undoubtedly the absence of transparency in contracts and the presence of private security companies clearly connected to certain officials -- contributing ultimately to the privatization of security and thus insecurity in our country -- are matters of grave concern. But the international terrorist presence in the region is not entrenched solely because of Afghan corruption. Britain, Spain, Turkey, China, Germany and India have all been victims not of Afghan corruption but of international terrorism -- emanating from the region.
It is my firm conviction that securing our people, districts and towns from terrorists; institutionalizing the rule of law; and fighting corruption are necessary steps toward building a strong and responsive state. But that is not enough. No domestic measure will fully address the threat of international terrorism, its global totalitarian ideology or its regional support networks. Dismantling the terrorist infrastructure is a central component of our anti-terror strategy, and this requires confronting the state that still sees terrorism as a strategic asset and foreign policy tool.
To be clear, Afghanistan opposes the expansion of conflicts into other countries and opposes unwarranted military interventions in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. But global efforts to counter terrorism will not succeed until and unless there is clarity on who our friends and foes are.
The conflict we are engaged in is becoming a long and expensive war for us and our international partners. The Afghan people are rightly frustrated and exhausted by a war in which the line between friends and foes is blurred. Global opinion has also turned against us. Yet surely it is understandable that we have failed to mobilize people for a cause where the fighting is in one place and the enemy is in another. How can we persuade Afghans, or the parents of young soldiers from coalition countries, to support a war where our "partners" are involved in killing their sons and daughters? While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists' main mentor continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified?
The Afghan people are no longer ready to pay the price for the international community's miscalculation and naivety. The aggressor understands only one language: that of force and determination. Afghanistan, along with the United States and many other nations, is a victim of terrorism. The international community must establish a clear alliance among such victims. We cannot mobilize the Afghan people with uncertainty, confusion or appeasement of those who sponsor terrorism.
The writer is national security adviser of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He served previously as foreign minister.
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Air base expansion plans reflect long-term investment in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 23, 2010; A06
Three $100 million air base expansions in southern and northern Afghanistan illustrate Pentagon plans to continue building multimillion-dollar facilities in that country to support increased U.S. military operations well into the future.
Despite growing public unhappiness with the Afghan war -- and President Obama's pledge that he will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011 -- many of the installations being built in Afghanistan have extended time horizons. None of the three projects in southern and northern Afghanistan is expected to be completed until the latter half of 2011. All of them are for use by U.S. forces rather than by their Afghan counterparts.
Overall, requests for $1.3 billion in additional fiscal 2011 funds for multiyear construction of military facilities in Afghanistan are pending before Congress. The House has approved the money, as has the Senate Appropriations Committee. The full Senate has yet to vote on the measure.
In addition, the United States has already allocated about $5.3 billion to construct facilities for the Afghan army and the national police, with most of the "enduring facilities . . . scheduled for construction over the next three to four years," according to a Pentagon news release this month.
For example, a $30 million contract was recently awarded to build a regional military training center in Mazar-e Sharif, according to Col. Mike Wehr, engineer director of the combined NATO training mission. That facility, too, will not be completed until late 2011, and then it will be used to train Afghans in various military specialties, including engineering.
"We're only about 25 percent complete in our construction [for Afghan security forces], and there is quite a bit more to go over the next three years," Wehr told a defense bloggers roundtable last week. One goal of the NATO transition program is to have Afghans ready to maintain these facilities by 2013, Wehr added.
The three bases being expanded for U.S. use after 2011 reflect the expectation of continued combat operations, but they are just part of a broader expansion of U.S. facilities across the country.
North of Kabul, the Pentagon is planning to build a $100 million area at Shindand Air Base for Special Operations helicopters and unmanned intelligence and surveillance aircraft, along with office, ground and maintenance facilities, plus barracks for 60 new personnel, according to a notice posted last week.
"The force increase in Afghanistan will require additional ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and airlift aircraft at the base," reads Pentagon material sent to Congress to justify the expense. It notes that roughly 800,000 gallons of jet fuel are needed to be stored "in near proximity to planned U.S. air operations at the base." The cost alone for constructing the temporary storage facility for that fuel and facilities for parking and operation of 14 refueling vehicles is put at $2.5 million.
Another $100 million project is planned for the air field at Camp Dwyer, a Marine base in Helmand province, where expansion is needed to accommodate fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft.
Dwyer's airfield is described as "a key hub" to support Special Operations forces operations in southern Afghanistan, according to the congressional presentation. Currently, there is not enough parking and runway space to handle the number of Special Operations aircraft required, it adds.
Contractor proposals were also due last week for a third $100 million project, this one at Mazar-e Sharif, where increased operations and incoming supplies for northern Afghanistan require more taxiways and parking space for both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, plus three or more maintenance hangars.
Part of the reason for expansion is to be able to handle up to six helicopter and two fixed-wing aircraft. According to the material sent to Congress, the two aircraft could be C-5 or equivalent strategic transports "in order to expand major logistical and combat support operations into the region."
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US looks to Iraq strategy for Afghanistan
by Karim Talbi – Mon Aug 23, 6:20 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – With the withdrawal of the final American combat brigade from Iraq, US commanders in Afghanistan are hoping to emulate a strategy used there as they step up the war against insurgents.
The number of US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan is set to peak at 150,000 in coming weeks following orders from US President Barack Obama for an extra 30,000 troops, a "surge" aimed at speeding the end of the war.
Critics say his goal to start drawing down the US presence from mid-2011 is unrealistic, as Afghanistan's security forces are not up to the task of taking charge of the war-torn country.
The 2007 US troop surge in Iraq built on moves the year before to co-opt Sunni tribal militias and turn them against their former Al-Qaeda allies.
Violence peaked, but the United States was soon able to capitalise on the two-pronged approach and turn around the war, which had raged increasingly out of control since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Now Washington is hoping the war in Afghanistan -- deadlier than ever and already two years older than the Iraq conflict -- can benefit from a similar strategy.
The commander of international forces, US General David Petraeus, who took up his post on July 4, was quick to press for what are now called Local Police Forces -- armed men paid by the government to defend their villages.
The programme is already under way in central Wardak and southern Uruzgan provinces, with plans to extend it to the toughest bastions of insurgency in the south, southwest and east, deputy interior minister Mohammad Munir Mangal has said.
Unlike the Iraqi militias, which were drawn largely along tribal lines, Afghanistan's are localised at village level, officials said.
"It will be up to 10,000 people, in perhaps something like 30 districts all over the country. They will have uniforms, small arms only, radios, but they cannot arrest," said the spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) General Josef Blotz.
"It's like a local neighbourhood watch for defence purposes only. They won't be used as fighting units.
"We need temporary solutions. After two to three years, they can be dissolved or integrated into the police."
Stephen Biddle, an expert on defence policy at Washington think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations, said the village forces plan for Afghanistan had less potential than the Iraqi militias, which were made up of former insurgents.
"In Iraq, the SOI (Sons of Iraq) were mostly insurgents. When these insurgents became SOI, it dramatically reduced the threats," said Biddle, who advised Petraeus in Iraq.
"The village defence force concept in Afghanistan has substantially less potential -- it can be useful as a modest contributor in a limited role, but I don't think it has the potential to transform the security situation.
"The question is how broadly we are going to apply the programme," he said.
Some observers have said it would be better to reinforce the police -- regarded largely as ineffective and corrupt -- and the under-funded military, rather than arm the tribes.
Karzai initially opposed the village militia plan, telling US media when it was first mooted two years ago: "If we create militias again, we will be ruining this country further."
His fears were apparently based on recent history: the communist government of the 1980s funded tribal forces to make up for its own inadequate security structures, but they later morphed into powerful militias that fought each other in a long civil war.
Fighting during that 1992-1994 conflict killed more than 80,000 civilians, according to UN figures.
Nader Nadery, of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said the plan contradicted a trend towards disarming groups in a country where peace among disparate ethnic and tribal interests is tenuous at the best of times.
"We have tried to disarm groups for many years now, and this means re-arming some people," he said, referring to a UN-backed government programme to persuade myriad armed factions to hand in their weapons.
As the war drags towards its 10th year, US Senator John Kerry said during a recent visit to Kabul that for eight years there was no coherent strategy for Afghanistan.
"This is the first time we've had a strategy. People seem to forget that, that this strategy was only announced last December," he told reporters.
"We have made enormous progress in those six months."
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Taking bin Laden's Side
The New York Times By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF August 22, 2010
Is there any doubt about Osama bin Laden's position on the not-at-ground-zero mosque?
Osama abhors the vision of interfaith harmony that the proposed Islamic center represents. He fears Muslim clerics who can cite the Koran to denounce terrorism.
It's striking that many American Republicans share with Al Qaeda the view that the West and the Islamic world are caught inevitably in a "clash of civilizations." Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who recruits jihadis from his lair in Yemen, tells the world's English-speaking Muslims that America is at war against Islam. You can bet that Mr. Awlaki will use the opposition to the community center and mosque to try to recruit more terrorists.
In short, the proposed community center is not just an issue on which Sarah Palin and Osama bin Laden agree. It is also one in which opponents of the center are playing into the hands of Al Qaeda.
These opponents seem to be afflicted by two fundamental misconceptions.
The first is that a huge mosque would rise on hallowed land at ground zero. In fact, the building would be something like a YMCA, and two blocks away and apparently out of view from ground zero. This is a dense neighborhood packed with shops, bars, liquor stores - not to mention the New York Dolls Gentlemen's Club and the Pussycat Lounge (which says that it arranges lap dances in a private room, presumably to celebrate the sanctity of the neighborhood).
Why do so many Republicans find strip clubs appropriate for the ground zero neighborhood but object to a house of worship? Are lap dances more sanctified than an earnest effort to promote peace?
And this is an earnest effort. I know Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan - the figures behind the Islamic community center - and they are the real thing. Because I have written often about Arab atrocities in Darfur and about the abuse of women in Islamic countries, some Muslim leaders are wary of me. But Imam Feisal and Ms. Khan are open-minded and have been strong advocates for women within Islam.
The second misconception underlying this debate is that Islam is an inherently war-like religion that drives believers to terrorism. Sure, the Islamic world is disproportionately turbulent, and mullahs sometimes cite the Koran to incite murder. But don't forget that the worst brutality in the Middle East has often been committed by more secular rulers, like Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad. And the mastermind of the 1970 Palestinian airline hijackings, George Habash, was a Christian.
Remember also that historically, some of the most shocking brutality in the region was justified by the Bible, not the Koran. Crusaders massacred so many men, women and children in parts of Jerusalem that a Christian chronicler, Fulcher of Chartres, described an area ankle-deep in blood. While burning Jews alive, the crusaders sang, "Christ, We Adore Thee."
My hunch is that the violence in the Islamic world has less to do with the Koran or Islam than with culture, youth bulges in the population, and the marginalization of women. In Pakistan, I know a young woman whose brothers want to kill her for honor - but her family is Christian, not Muslim.
Precisely because Palestinian violence has roots outside of Islam, Israel originally supported the rise of Hamas in Gaza. Israeli officials thought that if Gazans became more religious, they would spend their time praying rather than firing guns.
President George W. Bush was statesmanlike after 9/11 in reaching out to Muslims and speaking of Islam as a religion of peace. Now many Republicans have abandoned that posture and are cynically turning the Islamic center into a nationwide issue in hopes of votes. It is mind-boggling that so many Republicans are prepared to bolster the Al Qaeda narrative, and undermine the brave forces within Islam pushing for moderation.
Some Republicans say that it is not a matter of religious tolerance but of sensitivity to the feelings of relatives to those killed at ground zero. Hmm. They're just like the Saudi officials who ban churches, and even confiscate Bibles, out of sensitivity to local feelings.
On my last trip to Saudi Arabia, I brought in a Bible to see what would happen (alas, the customs officer searched only my laptop bag). Memo to Ms. Palin: Should we learn from the Saudis and protect ground zero by banning the Koran from Lower Manhattan?
For much of American history, demagogues have manipulated irrational fears toward people of minority religious beliefs, particularly Catholics and Jews. Many Americans once honestly thought that Catholics could not be true Americans because they bore supreme loyalty to the Vatican.
Today's crusaders against the Islamic community center are promoting a similar paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it.
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Speculators Want Land from Afghan Refugees In Pakistan
August 22, 2010 VOA News Lisa Schlein | Geneva
The U.N. refugee agency says speculators around Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkwa in northern Pakistan, are pressuring Afghan refugees in flood-affected areas to repatriate and not return to their dwellings and refugee villages after floodwaters recede.
The U.N. refugee agency says it is becoming increasingly alarmed by this attempted land grab. It says hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan's northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkwa Province have been forced to flee their flooded settlements.
UNHCR Spokesman Adrian Edwards says speculators are pressuring some of these flood-affected Afghan refugees not to return to the land they fled. He says the speculators are urging the Afghans to repatriate so they can develop land around Peshawar that until now has been occupied by refugee settlements.
"Many of the Afghan refugee settlements in Pakistan were established more than 30 years ago after the Soviet invasion triggered the first wave of refugees across the border. At that time, the settlements that people fled to were often makeshift in remote areas and on the edges of cities," said Edwards. "Over time, these areas have become increasingly valuable along with cities that have grown around them."
Pakistan is hosting 1.7-million Afghan refugees. This is one of the world's largest refugee populations. More than 1.5 million of these refugees are living in flood-affected provinces.
The UNHCR says dozens of Afghan refugee villages have been damaged by the floods and several are completely destroyed. In Khyber Pakhtunkwa province alone, it reports more than 12,000 dwellings in refugee villages have been swept away, leaving almost 70,000 people homeless.
Edwards says the land speculators have no regard for the tragedy that is unfolding. What interests them is making a hefty profit by developing the valuable refugee settlements.
"This is a volatile situation. We need to make sure that people can move back as quickly as possible. We welcome the assurances that we have seen so far, but we need to see that those are fulfilled. I think we are going to have to watch this situation closely," he said. "We all know the kind of environment we are dealing with. It is a fast-moving environment, a difficult environment to enforce."
Edwards says the UNHCR has received assurances from federal authorities that all people affected by the floods should be able to return to their homes to rebuild. This includes Afghan refugees as well.
He says the Ministry of State and Frontier Regions and the Chief Commissioner for Afghan Refugees also have given assurances refugees have the right to return to their dwellings.
He says it is important to make sure the Afghan refugees who have been displaced by the floods have a home to return to. He says steps must be taken to make sure the moves by land speculators are stymied.
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Facing Afghan mistrust, al-Qaeda fighters take limited role in insurgency
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 23, 2010
On Aug. 14, a U.S. airstrike in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz killed a Taliban commander known as Abu Baqir. In a country where insurgents are killed daily, this attack was notable for one unusual detail:
Abu Baqir, the military said afterward, was also a member of al-Qaeda.
Although U.S. officials have often said that al-Qaeda is a marginal player on the Afghan battlefield, an analysis of 76,000 classified U.S. military reports posted by the Web site WikiLeaks underscores the extent to which Osama bin Laden and his network have become an afterthought in the war.
The reports, which cover the escalation of the insurgency between 2004 and the end of 2009, mention al-Qaeda only a few dozen times and even then just in passing. Most are vague references to people with unspecified al-Qaeda contacts or sympathies, or as shorthand for an amorphous ideological enemy.
Bin Laden, thought to be hiding across the border in Pakistan, is scarcely mentioned in the reports. One recounts how his picture was found on the walls of a couple of houses near Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, in 2004.
A year later, U.S. forces also saw his likeness on a jihadist propaganda poster near the Pakistan border. In 2007, a district subgovernor in Nangarhar province informed U.S. officials that a local newspaper would print "names of personnel working for bin Laden."
Other al-Qaeda leaders are similarly invisible figures. One report describes a botched June 2007 attempt to capture or kill Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda military commander. U.S. Special Forces missed their target, instead accidentally killing seven children in a religious school in Paktika province.
There are also fleeting references to Abu Ikhlas al-Misri, the nom de guerre of an Egyptian who serves as an al-Qaeda commander in Kunar province. In 2008, an Afghan district official confirmed to U.S. officers that he had heard a rumor that Abu Ikhlas was suffering from a "sprained ankle." But otherwise, at least in the WikiLeaks reports, the Egyptian remains in the shadows.
Change in strategy
In June, CIA Director Leon Panetta estimated that, "at most," only 50 to 100 al-Qaeda operatives were present in Afghanistan. His assessment echoed those given by other senior U.S. officials. In October, national security adviser James L. Jones said the U.S. government's "maximum estimate" was that al-Qaeda had fewer than 100 members in Afghanistan, with no bases and "no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."
Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaeda's leadership and fighters have largely sought refuge across the border in Pakistan. There they have been targeted by U.S. drone attacks from the skies as they try to remain beyond the reach of U.S. forces.
The evasion marks a departure from al-Qaeda's approach in previous conflicts. Bin Laden and other jihadist leaders recruited thousands of Arabs and other foreign fighters to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Al-Qaeda also persuaded hundreds, if not thousands, of followers to travel to Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion, where they played a significant role in fueling the insurgency and sectarian violence.
This time, U.S. military officials and analysts say, al-Qaeda has changed its strategy, mostly limiting its role in the Taliban-led insurgency to assisting with training, intelligence and propaganda. Although the terrorist network still considers the "liberation" of Afghanistan its primary strategic objective, it is biding its time until the infidels lose patience and leave.
"The numbers aren't large, but their ability to help local forces punch above their weight acts as a multiplier," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and Georgetown University professor. "They've learned from their previous experiences, when their foreign fighters were front and center."
In Iraq, he noted, al-Qaeda figures from elsewhere alienated the locals by trying to hijack that insurgency.
U.S. military officials say al-Qaeda recognizes the same risk in Afghanistan. Taliban leaders often see al-Qaeda, their erstwhile ally, as "a handicap," according to an unclassified briefing presented in December by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan.
Although Taliban commanders want support from al-Qaeda and jihadists around the world, according to Flynn, they are sensitive to the idea that ordinary Afghans might view it as foreign interference.
That balancing act has resulted in a limited, if steady, flow of foreign fighters. Most are Uzbeks and Chechens who join networks affiliated with, but not formally part of, al-Qaeda, U.S. military officials said. Less common are Arabs and European Muslims who answer al-Qaeda's direct call to join the jihad in Afghanistan.
One indicator of the presence of foreign fighters can be found at the U.S. military's new Parwan prison at Bagram air base.
Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward, commander of U.S. detention operations in Afghanistan, said fewer than 50 of the 950 prisoners come from outside the country. Of those, about three-quarters are Pakistanis. He said fighters from outside Central Asia are rare: "This is a very local fight."
Concentrated in the east
A review of the leaked U.S. military reports suggests that Arab fighters -- those most likely to be affiliated with al-Qaeda -- generally confine their activities to a handful of Afghan provinces along the Pakistan border. When they cross the line, the Arabs usually do so in small numbers and as part of larger Taliban units.
In June 2007, for example, a U.S. Army brigade combat team reported receiving information about a band of 60 Taliban insurgents, including six Arabs and two Iranians, massing on a mountaintop in Khost province. Also that month, in Paktika province, one Arab and two Pakistan fighters were killed after a larger Taliban group attacked a U.S. outpost in the Bermal district.
In November 2009, a patrol of Afghan soldiers and police led by U.S. forces reported an early evening ambush in Kunar province. A small group of insurgents planted a roadside bomb and attacked the patrol with small-arms fire. The patrol did not suffer casualties in the firefight, but they killed one of the enemy and recovered his cellphone. The patrol's report highlighted how their interpreter turned on the phone and found that "everything was in Arabic."
Analysts said other evidence confirms that al-Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan is concentrated in the east, just across the border from where the network's leadership is based in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Between 2005 and 2009, al-Qaeda's online propaganda arm produced a series called "Pyre for the Americans in the Land of Khurasan." (Khurasan is an ancient term referring to Afghanistan and other territory in Central Asia.) Of the 90 videos in the series, which contained purported scenes of Afghan battles and ambushes, 56 were filmed in three eastern provinces -- Kunar, Paktika and Khost -- that border the Pakistani tribal areas, according to Anne Stenersen, a researcher on Islamic radicalism for the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment.
The database of 76,000 reports posted by WikiLeaks covers the period from January 2004 to December 2009. Although extensive in number, they consist mostly of low-level military field reports, many of them unconfirmable, and are not a complete account of U.S. efforts to combat al-Qaeda. For example, the reports do not shed light on longstanding efforts to track or kill al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.
Some reports, however, provide secondary glimpses of the secretive campaign by U.S. Special Operations forces and the CIA to hunt insurgent leaders in Afghanistan. The records reveal the existence of one such unit, Task Force 373, which searches for targets on the U.S. military's "kill or capture" list, known as the Joint Prioritized Effects List.
Based on its numbering system, more than 2,000 targets have been added to the list, the reports suggest. There are many accounts of attempts to capture Taliban commanders on the list, but only one is clearly identified as a leader of al-Qaeda: Abu Laith al-Libi, who evaded the botched June 2007 raid in Paktika province.
The Libyan al-Qaeda military commander did meet his end in another U.S. operation seven months later -- in next-door Pakistan.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Training Afghan Police Remains Biggest Challenge
CBS News By Mandy Clark August 22, 2010
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - American soldiers in Afghanistan have the daunting job of training new Afghan police officers in one of the world's toughest neighborhoods - Kandahar, in the heart of Taliban country. CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark is there.
There's one thing you don't often see on the streets of Afghanistan's second largest city: a police officer. Kandahar is not only the spiritual home of the Taliban, but also a lawless free-for-all.
Hundreds of American military police soldiers are now patrolling these streets, but their real mission is to help build an Afghan police force capable of doing the job - and they have a long way to go.
It starts with the basics: how to walk in formation, how to carry a weapon, how to make your presence known to the people you are there to protect.
Part of being a cop is walking your beat - but this might be the most dangerous beat in the world
Officers are stationed in tiny outposts along an area known as the "Taliban highway." If they are going to hold this area on their own against an enemy that uses roadside bombs and sophisticated ambushes, they have a lot to learn.
Constable Bill Vollmar, from the Toronto police, is here to teach them the basics
For the last year, Vollmar has been teaching as many Afghan officers as he could reach.
"From searching people and stopping car we're just trying get the basics and keep them alive," Vollmar said.
But things are never simple here. Bad pay and bad equipment contribute to an alarming drop-out rate. The use of drugs is so widespread that officers who merely test positive for smoking hashish are warned, but not fired.
For now, the MPs are the only thing that's keeping their Afghan partners alive. But they won't be here forever.
"The army can't hold a country. They're there to protect it from people invading and such," Vollmar said. "The police are the, as they call it, the thin blue line."
Too thin. The U.S. has American soldiers posted to every police station in Kandahar. They can only start pulling out once these Afghan cops are able to hold the line - on their own.
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Berlin to train Afghan police even after security handover
Deutsche Welle 22.08.2010
Berlin is planning a long-term presence for German police trainers in Afghanistan. The German interior minister said the trainers, who instruct 5,000 police recruits a year, could stay in the country beyond 2014.
After responsibility for security is handed over to Afghan police and soldiers in 2014, German police trainers will continue to teach local recruits.
"That seems to me to be in tune with the sustainability of our current engagement," German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told the dpa news agency.
"But whether three, five, twenty or another number of police trainers will stay in Afghanistan, I can't yet say."
In July, Afghan President Harmid Karzai told international diplomats at a conference that 2014 was the date when Afghans "will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country."
It is a non-binding date, but has been seized upon by Western politicians facing electorates at home who are increasingly opposed to sending soldiers to fight an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency for a national government plagued by high levels of corruption.
Corruption is a problem
De Maiziere said he could imagine that German trainers would handle officer training after the official handover of security. By the Afghan police force should number 134,000.
German police train around 5,000 Afghans a year. The interior minister said that there were widespread problems of corruption in the Afghan state.
"A police force can only win authority in a country if it is free of corruption," de Maiziere said, adding that the same applies to the government.
Germany has been working to help train Afghan police recruits for eight years as part of the EUPOL project. This year, the number of German police trainers rose from 170 to 250.
Tense security situation
The new regional commander of the international Security Assistance Force in Northern Afghanistan, German Major General Hans-Werner Fritz, says the deployment in the area is "reaching a kind of culmination."
The security situation has gotten more tense over the last few months, Fritz told the German paper "Welt am Sonntag," but added that he was confident about making progress in the north of the country.
"I can see that we have come on in terms of stabilization and reconstruction," he said, stressing that it was important to keep both the military and civilian components of the Afghanistan mission in mind.
German Foreign Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg shared that opinion, saying the situation in parts of the country where German troops are stationed had gotten dramatically tougher. He said the Taliban has strengthened their positions in the north and even penetrated into formerly peaceful areas such as Kunduz.
He stressed, however, that in other areas the security situation was showing some improvement.
The ferocity of the war has been intensifying since the United States began deploying an extra 30,000 troops as part of President Barack Obama's surge in support of a counter-insurgency campaign aimed at speeding an end to the conflict. Germany has some 4,000 troops serving in Afghanistan.
Author: Joanna Impey (AFP, dpa)
Editor: Kyle James
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Afghanistan's new war crimes museum punts on still-powerful warlords
A war crimes museum in northeastern Afghanistan documents the past three decades of atrocities. But it displays little about perpetrators who remain influential today.
By Ben Arnoldy, Staff writer August 23, 2010 at 9:45 am EDT
Faizabad, Afghanistan — He was a very tall man who wore outsized shoes and blue clothes. Sayed Husain taught history and prayed at the mosque, and for that he was thrown into jail in 1979. Educated people like him were the first to be rounded up when the communists came to power in 1978, kicking off Afghanistan's three decades of turmoil.
It wasn't until recently that Husaini's sister, Masooma, found those shoes among the remains of hundreds of people in a mass grave in northeastern Afghanistan, helping to close a dark chapter for the family.
At the mass grave site here in Faizabad sits Afghanistan's first war crimes museum, which opened in December. It has three small wings, one for each decade of bloodshed. The ‘80s wing is lined with framed photos of those who were buried with Husain, and a glass case with their unearthed effects: keys, prayer beads, a gold tooth, coins, a lime-green comb caked with dirt. The other two wings are emptier, highlighting the trouble Afghanistan faces in coming to terms with atrocities committed by those still jockeying for power.
Some of the perpetrators who came after the communists – warlords like Abdul Rashid Dostum and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar – were not as soundly defeated. Mr. Dostum remains an ally of the government, delivering many thousands of votes for President Hamid Karzai from his ethnic Uzbek followers. Mr. Hekmatyar, meanwhile, is now negotiating with the Karzai government after years of fighting alongside the Taliban.
"The situation in Afghanistan is still not fit to build such kinds of museums where the people come, and it's explained that this is [the victim of] Dostum or this is [the victim of] Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, because the security situation is not good," says Haq Dad Sharifi, the media representative for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) office in Faizabad. "We collect the information and give it to the government. If the government has the power, they can do something with the information."
Even if the museum mainly highlights the war crimes that are safest to discuss, it still marks one of the first attempts to raise the issue and spark a conversation.
Visitors sometimes come to Sharifi's office in Faizabad asking why the atrocity happened. The office educates them about Afghanistan history as well as current rights to "make sure it doesn't happen again."
Burying the past
Not everyone agrees that focusing on history's dark corners should be a top priority – including the top official in Faizabad.
"Whenever some organization is going to have projects here or open an office here, they should focus on the culture – social and religious – of the people, not just focus on the bad things," says Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, governor of Badakhshan Province. He added that he didn't know much about the museum; he recently replaced the previous governor who backed it.
The Afghan government has given mixed messages over war crimes. Kabul passed a 2005 law to remove war criminals from power, ignored it, then quietly passed a 2007 law granting amnesty to all belligerents.
June’s peace jirga – or gathering of leaders to discuss how to deal with insurgents – worried human rights groups that it would encourage the government to pursue peace at the cost of justice. The delegates decided to only exclude from future peace negotiations those militants who were foreign or tied to foreign extremists.
"I wish there was a strong state and hard political will for justice in the country. I'm not looking [exclusively] for criminal justice, but some kind of healing process," says Sima Simar, chairperson for the AIHRC.
Ms. Simar says that her group will build more memorials to victims; it just opened one in Herat. She denies that AIHRC would shy away from highlighting the victims of current warlords: "For us, crime is crime, it doesn't matter who did it."
Closure for victims
For the families of the victims found in Faizabad's mass grave, the museum has given answers about the past and a renewed sense of sorrow.
Husaini remembers going to visit her brother in jail as a girl, bringing food for a family meal. He wasn't there. The guards told her that Husain had been transferred to Kabul. But later, when a rival faction came to power and emptied the Kabul prisons, Husain was still missing.
Hundreds of families around Faizabad came to believe the rumors that their loved ones had been thrown into the raging Kokcha River. But nobody could be sure until a builder discovered the mass grave in 2007 and the human rights commission began excavation work.
"It's good to know about their grave, at least we know where they are," says Husaini. "But it refreshes all our sorrow."
She says she isn't looking for justice because no one has the ability to give it and it won't bring her brother back. Other relatives of victims, however, come to see Sharifi in the Faizabad office looking for justice.
"We advise people that these things happened to everyone, but we are trying to make sure it doesn't happen in the future," says Sharifi. "They accept this because they don't have any other way.”
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Petraeus: No Sudden Troops Exodus From Afghanistan
Petraeus says he'll tell Obama there should be no sudden exodus of troops from Afghanistan
By DAVID STRINGER The Associated Press
LONDON - The top American commander in Afghanistan warned Monday there should be no sudden exodus of U.S. troops when the process of withdrawing forces begins next year.
In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television, Army Gen. David Petraeus urged caution over hopes for the planned pullback of American troops, which is scheduled to begin in July 2011.
"That's a date when a process begins nothing more, nothing less. It is not the date when the American forces begin an exodus and look for the exit and the light to turn off on the way out of the room," he said, in an interview recorded in Kabul.
"It's a date when the process of transition of some tasks to some Afghanistan forces in those areas where conditions allow it, and at a pace allowed by the conditions that's what begins then," Petraeus said.
The four-star general declined to say whether he believed the start of the withdrawal may need to be delayed, but said the surge of international troops is showing signs of success. He said there had been a major impact in diminishing the Taliban's capability in the country's south and also around the capital Kabul.
"The reality is that the momentum that the Taliban have established over the course of recent years has been reversed in many areas of the country and will be reversed in the other areas as well," he said.
Petraeus warned, however, that further progress to force Taliban fighters out of their remaining safe havens will entail tough fighting. "It gets harder before it gets easier," he said.
In late 2009, Obama authorized to grow the force in Afghanistan by 30,000 to 100,000 troops triple the level from 2008 but promised to begin withdrawing forces by July.
"Come July 2011, I will offer the President my best professional military advice," Petraeus told the BBC, asked if the start of the process may need to be pushed back.
Petraeus, who's been credited with a successful war strategy in Iraq, insisted he wouldn't shirk from offering Obama difficult advice on the drawdown.
"When you go into a job like this ... you think that it's your last job, that's what I did in Iraq. You are determined to do the very best you can, in this particular position, to provide your most forthright assessments and advice," Petraeus said.
His comments were the latest in a media blitz over the last two weeks, which has also included interviews with NBC's "Meet the Press," The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Petraeus took charge of U.S. and NATO military operations in Afghanistan in July, replacing Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was fired by Obama over disparaging remarks he and his aides made about their civilian bosses.
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NATO: 4 foreign troops in Afghanistan
By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 23, 7:10 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – Roadside bombs killed four members of the international security force in Afghanistan on Monday, including one American, NATO reported.
The attacks came in the north, south and east of the war-torn country, the military alliance said. The nationalities of the other troops killed were not known, and no other information was released.
The deaths bring the number of foreign forces killed in Afghanistan this month to 46, including 29 Americans, according to a count by The Associated Press.
They come amid a particularly bloody period for international troops, with 66 Americans killed in July — the deadliest month for the U.S. in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion that overthrew the hard-line Islamist Taliban government.
Monday's casualties follow the deaths Sunday of four U.S. troops amid fierce fighting in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
Combat has intensified around the country amid an increase in the number of foreign forces battling the stubborn Taliban insurgency to about 120,000, including more than 78,000 Americans. Foreign troops are increasingly skirmishing in the vast south and mountainous east, where insurgents have long held sway. Militants also are attacking coalition forces in parts of the north and west where they were not previously active.
Amid the continuing violence, President Hamid Karzai defended his decision to disband private security firms operating in the country, saying they were undermining Afghanistan's police and army and contributing to corruption.
Karzai last week ordered Afghan and international security companies to cease operating by the end of the year, despite U.S. concerns the short deadline may endanger American development projects that are protected by private guards.
NATO uses security contractors to guard supply convoys bringing food, water, ammunition and other supplies to military bases. Critics of the decision have said Afghanistan's own security forces are not ready to assume the burden.
But Karzai told ABC News' "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" the companies undermine the effort to recruit more police and soldiers because the government can't compete with the private firms in salaries. He also repeated allegations that many companies are contributing to corruption by shaking down transport firms for money, some of which goes to warlords and the Taliban for protection.
Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omar, reiterated the government's determination to end such operations, calling it part of efforts to strengthen rule of law. Employees of private security firms would receive assistance finding new jobs, possibly with the Afghan national police or army, Omar said.
Even before Karzai's order last week, U.S. congressional investigators had been looking into allegations that Afghan security firms were extorting as much as $4 million a week from contractors paid with U.S. tax dollars and then funneling the money to warlords and the Taliban to avoid attacks against convoys. Allegations of widespread corruption have also been levied at the Afghan police.
During the interview, Karzai also said he was willing to talk peace with Taliban figures who break with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups — a key U.S. condition — and accept the Afghan constitution. He said there had already been "individual contacts with some Taliban elements" but not formal negotiations.
The president acknowledged fears that political, economic and social gains of women and ethnic minorities might be eroded under a future peace agreement with the Taliban, which banned women from most jobs and education during their years in power.
Those concerns were heightened last week when Taliban militants in northern Afghanistan stoned a young couple to death for adultery in the first confirmed use of the punishment here since the hard-line Islamist regime was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.
Karzai said he was in "deep, deep shock" over the stoning and would ensure that women's representation in peace talks would be "solid and meaningful."
He said the Afghan people must make sure the gains made by women "in political, social and economic walks of life" since the fall of the Taliban were not only protected "but are promoted and advanced further."
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Troops kill five Taliban in S Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Gun battle and militancy elsewhere in Taliban hotbed southern region of Afghanistan left five Taliban insurgents dead including their commander, while unknown armed men shot dead a senior police on Sunday, officials said.
"Afghan and NATO-led troops attacked Taliban hideout in Shah Joi district, Zabul province in the wee hours of today, killing five rebels including their commander Mullah Sangaryar," spokesman for provincial administration Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar told Xinhua.
He also asserted that Mullah Sangaryar was an important Taliban leader in Zabul province. However, the outfit has yet to make comment.
In another development, unknown armed men gunned down Hajji Abdul Waheed, the deputy to highway police of Kandahar-Uruzgan in Kandahar city Sunday morning, a police officer Mohammad Shah Farooqi said.
He blamed Taliban insurgents for murdering the police officer. Taliban militants have sped up their activities since beginning this year in Afghanistan.
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4 Taliban militants, 5 civilians killed in N Afghanistan
BAGHLAN, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Clash and explosion left nine persons dead including four Taliban insurgents elsewhere in north Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.
In the first incident which took place early Sunday morning; four Taliban militants were killed as troops stormed their hideout in Baghlan province.
"Security forces raided Taliban hideout in Karkar area outside provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri early this morning killing four rebels and detained another," spokesman for police in Baghlan province Jawed Basharat told Xinhua.
He also added that some arms and ammunition including two assault rifles were seized from their possession.
In another incident which happened in Almar district of Faryab province on Saturday five persons, all civilians were killed and two others sustained injuries, Interior Ministry said in a statement.
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12 Taliban militants killed in E Afghanistan
NANGARHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- NATO-led troops killed a dozen Taliban insurgents in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, according to a Nato statement on Sunday.
The operation in Pachir-o-Hagam district on Saturday afternoon eliminated 12 insurgents, the statement said.
Meanwhile, Nangarhar provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai confirmed there was no civilian casualty in the operation.
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Unknown armed men kidnap district chief, son in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified armed men abducted a district chief and his son in Kunar province east of Afghanistan, a private television channel reported Sunday.
"Unknown armed men abducted Hajji Ghulam Nabi the governor of Sauki district along with his son Saturday outside provincial capital Assadabad," Tolo broadcast in its news bulletin.
Citing police in Kunar province, the television also added that search operation to recover and rescue the abducted official and his son has begun.
No groups or officials have claimed of responsibility. However, Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops often target government interests.
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Insurgent fire kills 2, including child, in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Two Afghan female civilians, including a child, were killed when insurgents attacked an Afghan and coalition patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of southern Helmand province Saturday.
A press rlease issued Sunday by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said insurgents attacked the patrol with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and weapon-mounted grenade launchers.
The combined patrol responded with small-arms and mortar fire, said the ISAF press release.
It said following the engagement, an Afghan male reported that a child had been killed by insurgent RPG fire.
The man then took one Afghan female to a nearby coalition patrol base, where she subsequently died of wounds caused by an insurgent RPG.
Helmand province is dubbed Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan.
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Three key Taliban commanders killed in S Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Three key Taliban commanders were killed as troops stormed their hideouts in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, a press release issued by provincial administration said on Sunday.
"The cleanup operation was launched by international troops in Arghandab district Saturday night as a result three key Taliban commanders namely Mullah Manan, Mullah Bilal and Mullah Shafiullah were killed," the press release said.
Four more Taliban fighters were injured in the operation, it added.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
Kandahar, known as the birthplace of Taliban, has been the scene of increasing Taliban-led insurgency over the past couple of years.
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Premature explosion kills 4 militants in N. Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Four Taliban militants were killed as their mine went off prematurely in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province Saturday, according to a statement issued by Afghan Interior Ministry on Sunday.
"Four rebels were planting a mine on a road in Tape-i-Alizai area of Chamtal district in Balkh province on Saturday when the device exploded accidently killing the four on the spot,"the statement said.
The hardliner militias have yet to make comments.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and the NATO-led forces have adopted suicide and roadside bombings as new military tactic which in many cases proved deadly for security forces, civilians and as well militants.
The adamant militants have speed up their assault against security forces since early this year.
Balkh province in northern Afghanistan bordering Uzbekistan has been regarded as peaceful province over the past years.
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Candidate's Brother Killed in Taliban Attack
TOLOnews Sunday, 22 August 2010
The brother of one of the parliamentary elections candidates was killed and three of his body guards were wounded Saturday afternoon in the western Herat province
"When Abdul Hadi Jamshidi, a parliamentary elections candidate from Rabat Sangi district of Herat went to campaign in the district's Qasim Baig village, he came under Taliban attack in which his brother was killed," Abdul Rawoof Ahmadi, Police Spokesman in western Afghanistan told TOLOnews.
After clashes between the Taliban and the candidate's bodyguards, police forces arrived to the area and forced Taliban to pull back, he added.
"I wanted to go a village for my electoral campaigns. I contacted my brother and told him that I was on my way, but when I arrived there, the Taliban had attacked and killed my 30- year-old brother, Abdul Baqi Jamshidi," Abdul Hadi Jamshidi, told TOLOnews reporter.
The three wounded bodyguards are my cousins, of whom one is in a critical condition, he added.
No casualties have been reported on the Taliban and the Afghan National Police side.
Afghan parliamentary elections candidates have previously expressed concern over security problems, and have urged the government to put serious steps in maintaining their security.
Meanwhile, head of Afghanistan Independent Elections Commission (IEC), Fazal Ahmad Manawi, had said on Wednesday last week that around 1,000 polling centres will be closed in 25 provinces due to the increasing insecurity in the country.
IEC has also reported that a number of other polling centres are likely to be closed.
The number of polling centres in upcoming Afghan parliamentary elections will be 5,835 that will have 18,762 polling areas, IEC said.
Afghan and coalition forces have intensified counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan's unstable regions to maintain security during the upcoming Afghan parliamentary elections.
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Pentagon Condemns Taliban for Claiming Captured U.S. Soldier Joined Their Cause
Published August 23, 2010 | FoxNews.com
The Pentagon condemned and refuted the Taliban's claim Monday that the only known American soldier in their captivity had been converted to Islam and is training fighters in bombmaking and ambush tactics.
Private Bowe Bergdahl disappeared from an American military base in southeastern Afghanistan in June 2009. Last week, one of his captors was interviewed, shedding light on a case that has baffled U.S. military officials.
A Taliban deputy district commander in Paktika province said the 24-year-old American had converted to Islam in the months after his capture. He said Bergdahl, from Idaho's Sun Valley, had trained Taliban fighters in bomb-making and ambushing convoys.
"When I saw him for the second time, he had totally changed. He had a beard and he treated all of us very respectfully. He seemed very relaxed in our company. He was no longer scared," said the commander, who called himself Haji Nadeem.
But U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian dismissed the claim and vowed that the kidnappers would be brought to justice if Bergdahl is harmed.
"The Taliban spokesmen are notorious for their puffery, and for exploiting captives through propaganda," Dorrian told Fox News. "We condemn his kidnapping and demand SPC Berhdahl's immediate release by his captors. The perpetrators responsible for SPC Bergdahl's abduction will be brought to justice if anything happens to him."
Bergdahl, who was said to be given the Muslim name Abdullah after converting, allegedly taught Nadeem how to dismantle a Nokia mobile telephone and turn it into a remote control for roadside bombs. Nadeem also claimed he received basic ambush training during a two-hour session in the Sar Hawza district.
"Most of the skills he taught us we already knew. Some of my comrades think he's pretending to be a Muslim to save himself so they wouldn't behead him," said Nadeem.
Afghan intelligence also believes Bergdahl is "co-operating with the Taliban" at one of its bases in the tribal area of Pakistan.
A senior official in Ghazni province, where Bergdahl was moved before being transferred to Pakistan, said intelligence suggested that the American had acted as an "adviser" to the rebels.
The Taliban have killed at least two informers caught passing information about Bergdahl's whereabouts to the NDS, Afghanistan's intelligence agency, according to the official.
American forces, acting on a tip-off received by the NDS six days after Bergdahl disappeared, came close to rescuing him when they raided a tent belonging to Kuchi nomads on the Pakistan border.
The soldiers chased a group of fighters in the vicinity, killing at least one of them. They found rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles in one of the tents, but no Bergdahl.
Three videos showing the American soldier in captivity have been released by the Taliban, including one on Christmas Day in which Bergdahl criticized American operations in Afghanistan.
Bergdahl left his observation post in Paktika's Yahya Khel district on June 30, 2009 accompanied by an Afghan soldier. He was spotted entering a village close to the local bazaar at Sharan.
A group of eight Taliban gunmen in a field nearby were alerted to spring an ambush. As the fighters encircled the two men, the Afghan soldier raised his weapon to fire but was shot and killed instantly.
Bergdahl raised his hands in surrender. One of his attackers whipped him across the face with the butt of his rifle, forcing him to the ground.
The Taliban dragged the soldier, who was attached to the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, into a compound. They kicked him in the chest, took his pistol and ordered him to take off his bulletproof vest and uniform.
"The fighters thought he might have something on him that could give away his location to other American soldiers," said Nadeem.
He was given traditional Afghan clothes. The militants then radioed the Taliban in Mota Khan district, where their commander was based.
"My commander told them not to kill the American. He told them to feed him, hide him and he said take everything that he has on his body and throw it away. Don't even leave him with a small nail because it could be used to show your location," Nadeem said.
When Bergdahl missed roll call the following morning, Predator drones and dog teams launched a search. Then intercepted radio chatter confirmed that he was in enemy hands.
NewsCore contributed to this report.
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Turkmenistan Tips Its Hand On Future Energy Exports
August 22, 2010 By Bruce Pannier Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Turkmenistan, so key to the energy plans of so many, had long shown its readiness to break Russia's stranglehold on its gas and oil exports. But Ashgabat has offered few hints as to who it prefers as an alternative.
That changed last week, when President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov gathered energy officials together on August 12 and outlined, in much more detail than usual, the country's export-diversification policy.
It's a strategy that is pioneering in its calls for increased cooperation with Western companies, unambiguous in its preference for deals with China, and surprising for its failure to even mention traditional energy partner Russia and the EU's Nabucco gas-pipeline project.
The general idea, according to Turkish energy analyst Mehmet Seyfetdin, is for Turkmenistan to increase its pool of energy partners without angering Moscow. "Turkmenistan wants to show a counter-balance policy in its foreign relations, and we see that Turkmenistan wants to prevent Russia's pressure on it," Seyfetdin says.
Seyfetdin says that if Turkmenistan wants leverage in its dealings with Russia, "it needs the Western countries -- especially the United States." But Ashgabat is being cautious not to appear to be leaning too far toward the West. "To prevent misunderstandings, [Turkmenistan] also signed some agreements with the Gulf countries, which also are in close relationships with U.S. companies," the Turkish analyst explains.
Italy Gets A Foot In The Door
The most sensational news may have been Berdymukhammedov’s instructions for a new production-sharing agreement to be worked out that would allow a foreign company in on the development of the Nebit-Dag oil and gas field in western Turkmenistan.
Upon inking the deal, the Italian company Eni would become only the second foreign company -- after the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) -- to have an onshore contract in Turkmenistan.
It is not unheard of for Turkmenistan to work with foreign entities on the development of offshore resources, but for Western companies, securing such contracts has traditionally been difficult.
Discussing the development of Turkmenistan's Caspian shelf, Berdymukhammedov indicated a willingness to loosen things up, saying bids from the U.S. companies Chevron, TX Oil, and ConocoPhilips, as well as the United Arab Emirate's Mudabala, were being considered.
Berdymukhammedov also made clear that in terms of export routes, Turkmenistan was looking south.
Officials were instructed to "take all necessary measures" to ensure that arrangements for gas to be sold via the proposed TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline will be worked out by the end of the year. Those plans would have to overcome the instability in Afghanistan that has thwarted the TAPI project for the past 15 years, however.
The need to boost gas supplies to Iran was also mentioned, although Berdymukhammedov did not specify if he was talking about new gas exports or fulfillment of existing contracts.
The biggest consumer of Turkmen gas to the east -- China -- was by no means forgotten.
The Turkmen president named China, already contracted to purchase some 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually, as his preferred source for a $4.18 billion loan that would allow for the development of the country's largest gas field, South Yolotan. With estimated reserves of 4 trillion-14 trillion cubic meters, South Yolotan could potentially meet the European Union's gas needs for more than 20 years.
The Turkmen government has yet to say who, if anyone, it would involve in developing the field or which direction the gas would flow, but China would appear to have the inside track.
China provided Turkmenistan with a $3 billion loan last year for developing South Yolotan, and the provision of another $4 billion for the completion of the project's first stage would put China in an enviable position when the time comes for Ashgabat to decide on consumers and partners for the project.
Russia Left Out In The Cold?
The most glaring absence from Berdymukhammedov's plans is Russia, which has extensive control of the Soviet-era export pipelines on which Turkmenistan depends, and which just two years ago was buying some 40- 50 bcm of gas, accounting for about 90 percent of Turkmenistan's exports.
That, however, was before Russian-Turkmen gas relations soured at the start of 2009 due to a price dispute, and took a nasty turn in the spring when the main pipeline carrying Turkmen gas to Russia exploded. After that, supplies stopped completely, and the blame game began.
Russia eventually worked out a new deal, but it called for only a quarter of what Turkmenistan used to supply.
Berdymukhammedov's failure to mention Russia can be taken as a sign that relations have not improved and that Turkmenistan is looking beyond Russia for customers.
Aleksandr Yakovlev of the RosBusiness Consulting Agency suggests, however, that this is just business as usual. "The suppliers, the owners of the minerals, owners of the resources are inviting a significant number of transcontinental, transnational corporations, world megagiants, into partnerships," Yakovlev says.
The same is true for those seeking to buy energy resources, he says. "The consumers are trying to find among these numerous suppliers, on a competitive basis...those suppliers of resources who are offering more advantageous conditions," Yakovlev says.
Another key player left out of Berdymukhammedov's plans was the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline project, a 3,300 kilometer initiative intended to bring some 31 bcm of gas to the EU annually. Many believe the project is not possible without Turkmenistan’s participation as a supplier. But none of the companies Berdymukhammedov mentioned were shareholders in the Nabucco project.
Just a day after Berdymukhammedov's speech, however, came a sign that the Turkmen president intends to make good on his calls for diversification, and that Europe's energy needs would not be forgotten.
In Baku on August 12, the first Turkmen oil was loaded into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The oil came from Turkmenistan's Cheleken field in the Caspian Sea, and most of it will eventually reach the EU. It was a modest start, just 36,500 barrels, but plans call for supplies to increase to nearly 1 million barrels monthly.
Guvanch Geraev and Gozel Khoudaiberdiyeva of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service contributed to this report.
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WikiLeaks founder accuses Pentagon over rape claims
AFP August 23, 2010 8:21 AM
STOCKHOLM - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview published Sunday he believed the Pentagon could be behind a rape allegation against him that was swiftly dropped by Swedish authorities.
His comments came as prosecutors justified their treatment of the 39-year-old Australian, whose whistleblowing website is embroiled in a row with Washington over the publication of secret Afghan war documents.
The Aftonbladet newspaper quoted Assange as saying he did not know who was "hiding behind" the rape claim, which prompted prosecutors to issue a warrant for his arrest on Friday but which was cancelled the following day.
"But we have been warned that for instance the Pentagon will use dirty tricks to destroy us. I have furthermore been warned about set-up sex traps," he said, in a translation of comments published in Swedish.
The former computer hacker described the allegations as "shocking" and said he had "never, neither in Sweden nor in any other country, had sex with someone in a way which wasn't completely voluntary on both sides."
Assange told Aftonbladet -- for which he last week agreed to write a regular column -- that his enemies would still use the claims to damage WikiLeaks despite the lifting of the warrant.
The website is set to publish 15,000 more secret papers about the war in Afghanistan in coming weeks, having recently released nearly 77,000 papers and sparking charges that it had endangered the lives of informants and others.
"I know from experience that WikiLeaks' enemies continue to trumpet things even after they have been denied," Assange said.
He refused to give more details about the two women whose claims sparked the furore, saying that it would impinge on their privacy.
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said any allegation of dirty tricks was "absurd".
Sweden's prosecution service said Saturday that Assange was now "not suspected of rape" and was no longer wanted for questioning on the allegation, but added that an investigation into a separate molestation charge remained open.
He had been in Stockholm earlier this month giving a press conference on the upcoming release of the last batch of Afghanistan documents, but he generally remains on the move around the world staying with supporters.
He told Aftonbladet he was currently at a friend's summerhouse in northern Sweden.
As the furore over the arrest warrant grew, the Swedish prosecutor's office issued a statement on Sunday defending its actions.
It said that chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who was responsible for withdrawing the arrest warrant, had "more information available to decide on Saturday than the duty prosecutor on Friday evening".
"A decision regarding restrictive measures, such as this, must always be reevaluated in a preliminary inquiry," the statement added.
Prosecutor's office spokeswoman Karin Rosander told AFP late Saturday that the procedure followed was normal and would have been launched automatically by the duty prosecutor in serious cases such as rape.
Separately the duty prosecutor, Maria Haljebo Kjellstrand, said that she "did not regret her decision".
The two women who originally made the allegations did not make an official complaint and it was the police who took the decision to inform the prosecutor's office, she told Expressen newspaper, which broke the story of the charges.
"I received a report from the police which seemed to me to be sufficient to arrest him. On Friday evening I got a call from the police describing what the women said. The information I received was convincing enough for me to take my decision," Hljebo Kjellstrand was quoted as saying.
WikiLeaks and the Pentagon are locked in a bitter dispute over the Afghan papers, with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling the website "guilty" on moral grounds and Assange saying that the site would not be threatened.
The Pentagon has said it would not negotiate a "sanitised" release of the documents, as WikiLeaks had suggested it might in order that US officials could help analyse the documents and avoid publishing the names of people whose lives could be threatened.
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How WikiLeaks Keeps Its Funding Secret
Wall Street Journal By JEANNE WHALEN and DAVID CRAWFORD AUGUST 23, 2010
The controversial website WikiLeaks, which argues the cause of openness in leaking classified or confidential documents, has set up an elaborate global financial network to protect a big secret of its own—its funding.
Some governments and corporations angered by the site's publications have already sued WikiLeaks or blocked access to it, and the group fears that its money and infrastructure could be targeted further, founder Julian Assange said in an interview in London shortly after publishing 76,000 classified U.S. documents about the war in Afghanistan in July. The move sparked international controversy and put WikiLeaks in the spotlight.
In response, the site has established a complex system for collecting and disbursing its donations to obscure their origin and use, Mr. Assange said. Anchoring the system is a foundation in Germany established in memory of a computer hacker who died in 2001.
WikiLeaks's financial stability has waxed and waned during its short history. The site shut down briefly late last year, citing a lack of funds, but Mr. Assange said the group has raised about $1 million since the start of 2010.
WikiLeaks's lack of financial transparency stands in contrast to the total transparency it seeks from governments and corporations.
"It's very hard work to run an organization, let alone one that's constantly being spied upon and sued," Mr. Assange said in the interview. "Judicial decisions can have an effect on an organization's operation. We can't have our cash flow constrained entirely," he said.
Among the cases WikiLeaks has faced, the Swiss bank Julius Baer & Co. in 2008 sued for damages in federal court in California, alleging that the site had published stolen bank documents. The court ordered the disabling of the wikileaks.org domain name, but the bank withdrew its lawsuit after civil-rights advocates protested.
Though Mr. Assange declined to name donors or certain companies through which donations flow, he provided some insight into the funding structure that allows the group to operate.
The linchpin of WikiLeaks's financial network is Germany's Wau Holland Foundation. WikiLeaks encourages donors to contribute to its account at the foundation, which under German law can't publicly disclose the names of donors. Because the foundation "is not an operational concern, it can't be sued for doing anything. So the donors' money is protected, in other words, from lawsuits," Mr. Assange said.
The German foundation is only one piece of the WikiLeaks network.
"We're registered as a library in Australia, we're registered as a foundation in France, we're registered as a newspaper in Sweden," Mr. Assange said. WikiLeaks has two tax-exempt charitable organizations in the U.S., known as 501C3s, that "act as a front" for the website, he said. He declined to give their names, saying they could "lose some of their grant money because of political sensitivities."
Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks gets about half its money from modest donations processed by its website, and the other half from "personal contacts," including "people with some millions who approach us and say 'I'll give you 60,000 or 10,000,' " he said, without specifying a currency.
Retrieving money from the Wau Holland Foundation is a complicated task, he said. WikiLeaks must submit receipts to the foundation, which issues grants to reimburse them. Because German law requires the foundation to publicly disclose its expenditures, WikiLeaks uses "other foundations" to aggregate its bills and send them to Wau Holland, so that some of the companies WikiLeaks does business with remain anonymous, Mr. Assange said. This prevents anyone from seeing whom, for example, WikiLeaks pays for Internet infrastructure, or where that infrastructure is located.
To operate, the website needs several powerful computers linked to high-speed Internet connections. WikiLeaks particularly tries to obscure payments for "basic infrastructure that could be attacked," for "servers that are engaged in source protection," and for "security engineers," Mr. Assange said.
So far, Wau Holland has distributed 50,000 ($64,000) to a WikiLeaks account in Germany, strictly in exchange for receipts, according to Daniel Schmitt, spokesman at WikiLeaks, and Hendrik Fulda, deputy board chairman of the foundation. Mr. Schmitt controls the account.
The average donation to WikiLeaks via the Wau Holland Foundation is about 20, Mr. Fulda said. The largest donation through the foundation—10,000—arrived from a German donor after the publication of the Afghan war documents, he said, declining to reveal further details.
Mr. Schmitt said WikiLeaks needs about $200,000 a year to cover its operating expenses—mainly network fees, rent and storage costs for the sites where the servers are, and some hardware and travel expenses. Should it decide to pay salaries to its five staff members, as it is now considering, it would need about 600,000 a year, he said.
Paying salaries is a "sensitive subject," he said, noting that outsiders might question the need for them.
Mr. Fulda of the foundation said WikiLeaks needs 10,000 to 15,000 a month to maintain its Web presence. Late last year, when donors were contributing only 2,000 to 3,000 per month, WikiLeaks was struggling to survive, he said. So it shut down its website in December, leaving up only an appeal for donors to transfer money to the group via the Wau Holland Foundation. Soon, donations per month increased 20-fold.
WikiLeaks reopened its website in May, but "within days donations dropped back to near their former level," Mr. Fulda said.
The fluctuation caught the attention of Wau Holland's banking partners including eBayInc.'s PayPal, which demanded explanations for the surge and fall in donations. "I explained it wasn't money laundering, just WikiLeaks donations," Mr. Fulda said.
A PayPal spokeswoman said the company is "still processing payments for WikiLeaks." She said that she couldn't comment further on a specific account but that in general, PayPal is required by anti-money-laundering laws and its own anti-fraud regulations to investigate accounts when they exceed certain limits.
WikiLeaks has tried to diversify away from PayPal by adding other payment options to its site, including Flattr.com, a payment system based in Sweden, and Moneybookers, a system based in the U.K.
A spokeswoman for Moneybookers said the company used to provide services to WikiLeaks but "as they don't adhere to Moneybookers' standards, the agreement was terminated." She declined to comment further. Flattr didn't respond to a request for comment.
Write to Jeanne Whalen at jeanne.whalen@wsj.com and David Crawford at david.crawford@wsj.com
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